


No Hiding Place

by kangeiko



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-19
Updated: 2004-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-08 15:34:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fifth-year is victimised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Hiding Place

  
They had no names in his head. It was easier to keep his humiliation to himself that way. Somehow, it was less shameful to be afraid of a nameless someone than of flesh and blood, not much more than him, not much older, not much stronger. But what could be done when they were never alone? How was he to defend himself against several opponents at a time?

No. There was nothing he could do. With a Prefect as their protector, they could do anything and get away with it. His Housemates no longer protected him, either. During the first few years they had covered for him, tried to keep him out of the way. Now, though...

He was in fifth year. Plenty old enough to protect himself, his Housemates' looks said. Surely he couldn't have that much trouble with such obviously stupid opponents? Or was he even more stupid than them?

The trouble with stupidity was that only the insult seemed to register in their Neanderthal brains, not the warning or the intent behind it. All they understood was violence.

He'd tried protecting himself with words, one time. Tried to talk his way out of it with his back up against a wall and his wand out of reach.

They had found that especially amusing.

So he had learned to reach for his wand immediately, although not much good seemed to come from it. Evenly matched when it came to spells and parrying, he nonetheless always lost.

**They were never alone.**

All the warning he got was a row of badges twinkling at him, closely followed by the flash of a spell. Nothing serious – oh no. They were at least clever enough to not land him in the Infirmary and draw attention to themselves.

He had started to dream about those damned badges. He skipped breakfast so that he would not be subjected to their image emblazoned on the Hogwarts walls. He stayed in the Common Room in the evening so that he would not have to chance running into them, a solid wall of twinkling metal, framed by the flash of a spell.

What was he to do? He couldn't fight them. He couldn't get them to leave him alone. His Housemates were all wrapped up in their own troubles. He couldn't report them – not for minor jinxes and hexes. Not for ruining his potions or for hexing him during the lunch hour. They were too well protected by their Head of House; an idiot who thought far too much of them.

"Just you wait," he'd told them once. "Just you wait." Wait for what, they'd laughed. What are you going to do? Why is filth like you allowed here at all? What are you going to do, cry home to mummy?

How was he to fight them when they were never alone?

It couldn't go on. Of course it couldn't. His Housemates told him this with an air of finality and he tried to make himself believe it.

Of course it couldn't. They might slip up and seriously hurt him one of these days. They might forget to spell away some of the marks their hexes left on him. They might be caught over his dead body... Maybe then, what they were doing would finally be noticed. Maybe then they would be expelled for what they had done to him.

It was the least Potter and Black deserved.

*  
fin  



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